Pod Insights The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan Ann Wilson | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan About this episode Billy Corgan sits down with Heart's Ann Wilson to talk about the highs, heartbreaks, and hard-earned lessons behind one of rock's most enduring careers. Ann recalls the exact moment she discovered her powerhouse voice, why Aretha Franklin gave her chills before fame ever did, and how she and sister Nancy built "a parallel universe in rock" when the industry had no place for women. She gets candid about the 1980s "devil's bargain” swallowing outside-written hits that had no soul and the sobriety turning point that came the moment she became a mother.
Along the way, Ann shares stories about Seattle's music explosion, Alice in Chains, sibling dynamics, artists trademarking their own voices, and why she's plotting an ambitious new concept album.
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Transcript 11,669 words · 4 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:09 Speaker 01 Women had to build their own universe, a parallel universe in rock.
1:15 Billy Corgan? It seemed to me from the very beginning, you guys were a big band.
1:18 Speaker 01 Lyrics, to me, are everything.
1:20 Billy Corgan? You weren't just a pop act.
1:22 Speaker 01 Right.
1:23 Billy Corgan? Like, you meant something to that world.
1:25 Speaker 01 You've got to hang on to your identity.
1:28 Billy Corgan? It never struck me that you were afraid of, sort of, taking things head on.
1:32 Speaker 01 No, I've been pretty much wearing my life on my sleeve the whole time.
1:40 Billy Corgan? Anne Wilson, thank you for being here. So, nice to see you.
1:43 Speaker 01 My pleasure. Thanks for asking me.
1:45 Billy Corgan? So, you've had, you know, never quite sure when these things are going to come out, but generally speaking, as we're talking, your doc is just coming out, or you're promoting it.
1:55 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:57 Billy Corgan? In my voice.
1:58 Speaker 01 Yep.
2:00 Billy Corgan? I was curious, you're certainly worthy of your own documentary, but, you know, the hard docs have been done and the behind the musics and all that stuff. So, what about wanting to do your own story? It was important for you.
2:16 Speaker 01 Well, I felt, at this time in my life and in my career, that it would be refreshing to people to...
2:28 Speaker 01 Know something about me personally apart from the band.
2:31 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
2:32 Speaker 01 What's, why am I interesting otherwise if it's not all about heart, you know? And so we found that my life really was worthy of a documentary.
2:44 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
2:44 Speaker 01 A lot of stuff has happened.
2:46 Billy Corgan? Yeah. Yeah, I think that's interesting, right? Because I've been listening to you for, I think the first time I heard you was probably seventy seven, right? So.
2:55 Speaker 01 Oh, right.
2:56 Billy Corgan? For almost forty years of being a fan. And, um, but you know, you're one of those people that even though you've been in my life as a, as an artist and somebody I admire, I don't feel I know that much about you.
3:10 Speaker 01 Right, yeah.
3:11 Billy Corgan? And of course, it's always, most of what I know, at least colloquially, is within the context of being in a band with your sister and, you know, what happened in the seventies and what happened in the eighties. But I, I feel like I don't know that much about what you actually went through.
3:25 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:25 Billy Corgan? Does the doc kind of get into that?
3:27 Speaker 01 Absolutely.
3:27 Billy Corgan? That's great.
3:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, it goes through every decade and, and, uh, what was happening, and it's not a whitewash either. I mean, it doesn't just show the good stuff. It shows all the stuff.
3:40 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
3:41 Speaker 01 The ups and downs and, you know.
3:43 Billy Corgan? It never struck me that you were afraid of sort of taking things head on.
3:47 Speaker 01 No, it's, I've been pretty much, uh, wearing my life on my sleeve the whole time.
3:53 Billy Corgan? Um, talk about a little bit, if you don't mind, because you're doing this thing as we talk, where you're going to all these different cities. So you're showing the doc and then you're doing a Q and A afterwards.
4:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
4:03 Billy Corgan? What was the thinking behind that?
4:05 Speaker 01 Just that, um, to give people a chance to see it on a big screen, for one thing. Uh, but then to let them just ask us, me and the director, Barb Hall, to ask us questions that, that they might have had that weren't covered in.
4:23 Billy Corgan? Ah, yeah, that makes sense.
4:25 Speaker 01 Yeah.
4:25 Billy Corgan? Yeah, because that's, I guess that's the hardest thing, right? Because a doc usually ninety, hundred minutes, but how do you put a person's life into?
4:33 Speaker 01 Yeah.
4:34 Billy Corgan? You can't really.
4:35 Speaker 01 Well, ours is seventy five minutes and that's.
4:37 Billy Corgan? Okay, that's, that's a lot of life in the seventy five minutes.
4:40 Speaker 01 Yep.
4:45 Billy Corgan? You strike me, I guess, we were talking before we rolled, you know, my dad was a musician and my dad, like a lot of musicians, you know, he looked at musicians sort of like you either could play or you couldn't. And there were those in it because they were serious and there were those in it because they liked the party.
5:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:05 Billy Corgan? You always struck me as somebody who's like in it because that's what you do and you're in it till the end. Is that, is that a fair thing to say?
5:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, that's a fair thing to say. I'm a lifer.
5:14 Billy Corgan? Yeah, I was, that's the term I was gonna use. That's the term my daddy used is lifer. It's something, I feel like I'm a lifer.
5:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:20 Billy Corgan? We're not there yet, but, um, close enough, right?
5:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'd say starting at age 14 and still doing it when you're 75, that's, that's like pretty much.
5:34 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
5:35 Speaker 01 That tells people that you're into it.
5:39 Billy Corgan? I'm in awe of someone with your talent because, and, and I haven't known a lot of people like with your gift, but it seems like, and I've listened to early recordings with you, it's like, it just comes out of your mouth right. What was the first time you sort of realized that you just had this ability to just sing like that?
5:57 Speaker 01 Yeah, that was a really strange thing because, you know, I was always in choirs in high school and junior high and everything, but I was never the girl that got the solo. I was, I didn't really
6:12 Speaker 01 have the courage to come out and sing in front of people.
6:15 Billy Corgan? Really?
6:15 Speaker 01 Until I joined bands and then suddenly we, there was this day where we were working out, back then you just did songs that were on the radio. You just, it was all covers in our set. And we wanted to do Led Zeppelin songs and Deep Purple songs and there was no one else in the band who could sing in those ranges, especially in Robert Plant's range. And so it fell to me and I started trying it.
6:44 Billy Corgan? Okay.
6:44 Speaker 01 And it just sort of came out of me. It was, it was there.
6:49 Billy Corgan? So even before then, because you'd done stuff with your sister, kind of folk duo stuff, it never really occurred to you that there was this other thing happening?
6:56 Speaker 01 Right. The folky stuff is more soft and gentle.
7:00 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
7:01 Speaker 01 And then when you attempt something like Highway Star.
7:08 Speaker 01 It comes from a whole different place, as you well know.
7:10 Billy Corgan? Well, that's, at least I've found with, with great rock singers, something about pushing the voice up.
7:16 Speaker 01 Yeah.
7:17 Billy Corgan? That's where it's sort of like, wait, what is that?
7:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
7:21 Billy Corgan? But if I listen to early recordings of you singing rock, it's like, you sound like you then. This is before fame, before radio success.
7:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
7:31 Billy Corgan? That's pretty shocking to me. Speaking strictly as a musician to another musician is like, how does that happen? But obviously it came to you naturally.
7:39 Speaker 01 Yeah, I don't know how it happens either. It's, it's, it's just something that's in there.
7:44 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
7:45 Speaker 01 It's so deep in the child of you, I think.
7:49 Billy Corgan? Yeah. And so much personality too. Does it make sense the way I say it?
7:53 Speaker 01 Yeah.
7:54 Billy Corgan? Only you sing like you?
7:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
7:56 Billy Corgan? But it never sound, I can't find a recording of you where you don't sound like you.
8:00 Speaker 01 It's, it's funny because at the very beginning, when we were just doing all covers.
8:05 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
8:06 Speaker 01 The first thing you do is you try and imitate the singer in that band, like Ian Gillan or Robert Plant or whoever it was.
8:15 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
8:16 Speaker 01 But no matter how hard you try to imitate somebody else, you end up sounding like yourself.
8:20 Billy Corgan? Yeah. Yeah, I had the same problem, unfortunately.
8:25 Billy Corgan? Did you, did you have ambitions when you were young to, I mean, not just to be a musician, did you have ambitions that I wanted to be successful? Like, some people have a vision of fame or, or did you just want to be a working musician? Like, what was the process in that?
8:39 Speaker 01 I thought that, that I wanted to be a musician for sure, because it was the only thing that interested me. And when other girls were so like excited about boys and clothes and stuff like that, I was only excited about playing music.
8:58 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
8:58 Speaker 01 And Nancy was the same then.
9:01 Billy Corgan? Oh, that's interesting.
9:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
9:06 Billy Corgan? In your formative years, before this rock voice emerges, like who in your mind was somebody that you would have loved to have been as a singer?
9:16 Speaker 01 Well, Aretha Franklin, of course. She was my, she inspired me and gave me goose, goose, goosebumps first. She was the first one that really knocked my hair on end. Um, I would like to have been her.
9:34 Billy Corgan? Do you, have you seen that film that came out recently? It's the concert film where she sings in the church?
9:39 Speaker 01 No.
9:39 Billy Corgan? Oh, you haven't seen that?
9:40 Speaker 01 Oh, I gotta see it.
9:42 Billy Corgan? What happened was, um, I can't remember, somebody paid for the film to be made. It's her singing spirituals in a church somewhere here in LA.
9:52 Billy Corgan? And whatever happened, the sync for the film was messed up. So the film never got released. And now with computers, they were able to line up the film with the soundtrack and it's unbelievable.
10:07 Speaker 01 Wow.
10:08 Billy Corgan? Bernard Purdy's playing the drums. Like she has a real band playing with her in the church, full choir, and her singing spirituals. And she's just, she's standing at the, I'm getting chills telling you. She's just standing at the lectern singing and it's about an hour of her singing spirituals. At her, at her absolute physical peak, like 72.
10:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:27 Billy Corgan? It's jaw dropping.
10:29 Speaker 01 And she came from the church, so.
10:31 Billy Corgan? Yeah, her dad was a big preacher, I think in Detroit.
10:33 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:34 Billy Corgan? But to see her at the height of her pop career.
10:38 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:38 Billy Corgan? Go into a local church and sing just straight spirituals.
10:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:43 Billy Corgan? With the choir, it is, you gotta see that.
10:46 Speaker 01 Divine.
10:47 Billy Corgan? It's unbelievable.
10:48 Speaker 01 I saw her once here in LA at the, um, was it the Rainbow? It was a little cameo thing.
10:55 Billy Corgan? Okay.
10:56 Speaker 01 And she was just on this little pie crust stage and we were sitting at a table right by the stage and, you know, Aretha comes on and.
11:07 Speaker 01 By the time she'd gotten through one song, I was just bawling. I was crying, you know, because it was just too great. It was so wonderful.
11:19 Billy Corgan? Yeah, some people have a level.
11:20 Speaker 01 She had a glow coming off her that was just.
11:22 Billy Corgan? Well, some people, it's almost godly, the talent.
11:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
11:26 Billy Corgan? She definitely was one of those people.
11:27 Speaker 01 Transcendent, for sure.
11:29 Billy Corgan? Did you, when you found you, the singer, did you, did you understand that's what had happened? Or were you still kind of like, because at that point, you're, you're just a club singer.
11:40 Speaker 01 Right.
11:41 Billy Corgan? Did you feel like, whoa, I've tripped into something special or?
11:44 Speaker 01 Yes, yeah. And I always thought that it was special and that it was, like I said a second ago, that it was somehow divine and spiritual. And so I was serious in that way about even just singing a Who song or something like that. To me, that was a really spiritual thing.
12:09 Billy Corgan? Yeah. I found this song, Daybreaks was the band.
12:13 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
12:14 Billy Corgan? Through Eyes and Glass.
12:15 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. That's, that's the first real song that Nancy and I ever wrote.
12:19 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
12:21 Speaker 01 And see, we're already on this high horse about.
12:27 Speaker 01 In that song, it's, it's about a couple who are just fakes. They're phonies.
12:33 Billy Corgan? Okay.
12:33 Speaker 01 They're just acting their roles in their life.
12:36 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
12:36 Speaker 01 And the chorus is, get off the train, get off the train, the train of fakism, you know?
12:43 Billy Corgan? There's a lot of lines about the train, I remember.
12:46 Speaker 01 Be real, you know?
12:47 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
12:48 Speaker 01 And we were probably, I was probably about 16 when we wrote that.
12:53 Billy Corgan? But what's crazy is like, I listened to it this morning. I mean, it sounds like you today.
12:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
12:59 Billy Corgan? It's crazy to me.
13:01 Speaker 01 It is.
13:02 Billy Corgan? Sorry to go on about it.
13:03 Speaker 01 No, that's, that's good.
13:05 Billy Corgan? Um, when you, when you went down this path that it was going to be music, that was going to be your life's path, how were your parents with that?
13:15 Speaker 01 Uh, they were split. Um, our mother was very suspicious of it and worried that, you know, we were going to fall into the, the.
13:29 Speaker 01 Entertainer archetype where you take drugs and drink yourself to death.
13:34 Billy Corgan? Well, they weren't wrong.
13:35 Speaker 01 Like Judy Garland.
13:35 Billy Corgan? They weren't wrong.
13:36 Speaker 01 Right, right. But our father was, from the first moment, was really behind it.
13:42 Billy Corgan? Really?
13:42 Speaker 01 Very proud of us and, and, you know, drove us to gigs and all that.
13:50 Billy Corgan? That's beautiful.
13:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
13:53 Billy Corgan? There's this, because when I interviewed your sister in that chair, we talked about this time where you guys were kind of working as a folk duo. And then you went off with the band, Seattle up to Vancouver, something like that, right? That's the general.
14:07 Speaker 01 Yep.
14:07 Billy Corgan? Hocus Pocus was the band, if I remember correctly, before Heart.
14:11 Speaker 01 Right.
14:13 Billy Corgan? Once you weren't working with your sister, how instrumental were you with bringing her into the group?
14:21 Speaker 01 Yeah, she was still at university and I'd gone up to Vancouver following a man and.
14:32 Billy Corgan? This is the guy, was the manager of the band or was it that guy?
14:36 Speaker 01 Michael Fisher, yeah. And he'd gone up there to not participate in the Vietnam War.
14:44 Billy Corgan? Okay.
14:45 Speaker 01 So we were, we were Americans up there and, and like, I was loving it, just being up there, being romantic, just the two of us. But the, the band followed me. So pretty soon, all of them were up there too.
14:58 Billy Corgan? Okay.
14:58 Speaker 01 And so we formed a band and I, the only thing that was missing was a good, strong backup harmony and the acoustic guitar. So I kept inviting Nancy to come up to Vancouver.
15:14 Billy Corgan? Oh, wow.
15:14 Speaker 01 And she did whenever she got a break from school. And she started to come up more often and she would sit in with us
15:25 Speaker 01 because we were playing all kinds of clubs in those days and high school dances and stuff like that. But it was a stage. It was a way for us to get up there and.
15:34 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
15:35 Speaker 01 And, and work on it.
15:36 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
15:36 Speaker 01 And she finally came up enough that Mike Flicker, the producer, heard us with her on stage.
15:46 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
15:46 Speaker 01 And wanted to give us a record contract with all of us.
15:51 Billy Corgan? This mushroom?
15:52 Speaker 01 Mushroom.
15:53 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
15:54 Speaker 01 So she stayed.
15:55 Billy Corgan? Yeah, wow.
15:59 Billy Corgan? It strikes me that lyrics were hugely important to you from the beginning. Is that a fair?
16:08 Speaker 01 That's, that's true.
16:09 Billy Corgan? Yeah. Where did you think that came from? Was it the singer has to believe what you're singing? Or it's unusual that the lyrics were that important to a young artist.
16:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
16:22 Billy Corgan? I think.
16:22 Speaker 01 I think it was because our father was a, was a word man. And he was also an English teacher. And he would get a few beers in him and he would recite poetry at cocktail parties and at the dinner table. And so it was.
16:44 Billy Corgan? Is this Irish or Scottish solo we're talking about?
16:46 Speaker 01 Kind of, yeah. Yeah, very much.
16:48 Billy Corgan? It tends to be in those families.
16:49 Speaker 01 Very emotional. And so that was the language spoken in our family.
16:55 Billy Corgan? Oh.
16:55 Speaker 01 So lyrics to me are everything.
16:58 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
17:01 Billy Corgan? I love Dreamboat Annie. I'm a sucker for that song.
17:04 Speaker 01 Oh, thank you.
17:05 Billy Corgan? Warm wind caress her, her lover it seems. Oh, Annie, Dreamboat Annie, ship of dreams. I'm sure you've been asked, but I can't resist. How autobiographical is that at that?
17:15 Speaker 01 Oh, totally, yeah.
17:18 Speaker 01 Just ours, it's the metaphor for us.
17:22 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
17:24 Speaker 01 Just, just little wooden ship, you know?
17:27 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
17:33 Billy Corgan? Growing up and listening to rock radio in the seventies, you know, your emergence on the radio. Of course, regional, radio was so regional back then.
17:43 Speaker 01 Yes.
17:44 Billy Corgan? We didn't always understand in Chicago that, you know, Heart necessarily wasn't popular in other cities. But in Chicago, it seemed to me from the very beginning, you guys were a big band. You were on the radio constantly.
17:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, there were a few cities, especially in the Midwest. St. Louis was another one.
18:00 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
18:02 Speaker 01 That started out just, you know, getting us.
18:06 Billy Corgan? Yeah. So there were kind of two stories that were presented to us as fans in the seventies about your band. One was, this is a credible band fronted by women. So the cool thing was the rock crowd in Chicago accepted you guys from the very beginning.
18:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:22 Billy Corgan? Which I think is cool. But the other thing, there was a lot of focus on your looks.
18:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:26 Billy Corgan? You know, how comfortable uncomfortable were you with that from the beginning?
18:34 Speaker 01 It varied. Sometimes really comfortable, sometimes highly uncomfortable.
18:39 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
18:39 Speaker 01 Because it's so, there's such a double standard.
18:44 Billy Corgan? For women, absolutely. Even to this day, for sure.
18:46 Speaker 01 Yeah. And it's just something you have to live with. And when you get the bad comments, you know, you just have to go, well, okay, how about the rest of what I do, you know?
18:59 Billy Corgan? Yeah. Yeah.
19:01 Speaker 01 And you just have to go on.
19:03 Billy Corgan? Yeah. I mean, I remember talking about it with your sister a bit, but it's almost like
19:08 Billy Corgan? you two almost had to build a business that wasn't there before.
19:11 Speaker 01 Yeah. Yeah.
19:12 Billy Corgan? There had been, of course, credible female rock stuff.
19:16 Speaker 01 Right.
19:16 Billy Corgan? But something about your emergence into the American rock scene, when you emerged, signaled that, okay, this isn't just the same.
19:24 Speaker 01 Right.
19:24 Billy Corgan? Stuff.
19:25 Speaker 01 Right.
19:26 Billy Corgan? I don't want to be pedantic about it, but it's felt different and it, and now we see historically it was different.
19:31 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was different. And a lot of people in the industry didn't know what to do with us.
19:38 Billy Corgan? Oh, I'm sure.
19:39 Speaker 01 From the get go.
19:40 Billy Corgan? Especially a male dominated industry.
19:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. The big question back in those days was, why aren't there more women in rock? And I think the answer was that women had to build their own universe. A parallel universe in rock.
20:02 Billy Corgan? Can you, I know what you mean, but I actually want, I want you to talk more about it. It's very interesting to me.
20:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
20:10 Speaker 01 Women couldn't go by the same rules. They had to make, make a new infrastructure that, that understood women.
20:19 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
20:19 Speaker 01 And accepted women as people.
20:21 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
20:22 Speaker 01 Of different sizes, shapes, looks, personalities.
20:26 Billy Corgan? And probably you almost have to prove more than male counterparts many times.
20:31 Speaker 01 There's, there's a lot of truth in what the first line of feminists always used to say about, you have to do everything better than men and do it in high heels.
20:41 Billy Corgan? Yeah, or was that, that was the, that was the Ginger, Ginger Rogers line, right?
20:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
20:48 Billy Corgan? What was her great line? People always talk about Fred's dancing.
20:51 Speaker 01 Right.
20:51 Billy Corgan? I had to do it, I had to do it in heels.
20:54 Speaker 01 Backwards in high heels, yeah.
20:59 Billy Corgan? We can look back now, because obviously in many ways it was a more innocent time. I'm not, I know it wasn't mean, doesn't mean it was innocent, but it's more innocent now because we understand that what you did really was trailblazing.
21:15 Billy Corgan? How do you feel now, looking at, at the incredible crop of female-led rock artists that are out there now, accepted by the male audiences, are able to compete?
21:24 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
21:25 Billy Corgan? Basically peer-to-peer and on the charts?
21:28 Speaker 01 Well, it's, it's really amazing how many examples there are of women that are just going for it.
21:40 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
21:42 Speaker 01 And I'm not saying that every one of them is incredible, because there's a lot of, there, when there's so much, so many examples of people doing it, pretty soon, people get lost in the crowd, there's, they become anonymous, kind of, when there's too many. Too much saturation.
22:05 Billy Corgan? What is the stat now? 200,000 songs are released a day?
22:08 Speaker 01 Oh, God.
22:10 Billy Corgan? Makes you want to get in the studio and record, doesn't it? Here's another one.
22:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
22:15 Billy Corgan? Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I just, it just strikes me that, that, that's what I mean. In a way, it's, we can look back in those times in the seventies with some sense of innocence, because you, you got there in a way first, and there's always the first mover advantage of being there first. But we can also see that it opened the doors to so many artists that followed.
22:36 Speaker 01 Right.
22:37 Billy Corgan? It shouldn't really be a sexist business. It's the strangest thing to me that it is a sexist business. It's always struck me as odd.
22:43 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. It probably won't be forever, though. I, I can see it sort of, well, though, I must say that women have always been the biggest, the ones who are the most anti-woman. They set the bar so high.
23:04 Billy Corgan? Oh, I see.
23:05 Speaker 01 Yeah. And so it's just really hard for women who aren't maybe super talented or super courageous.
23:19 Billy Corgan? I see.
23:20 Speaker 01 To go in there and succeed.
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24:55 Billy Corgan? Talk a little bit about, because that, I call it Heart 1.0, but that, that early version of the band, that band was so good. What a great, what a great rock and roll band.
25:06 Speaker 01 Yeah, that, that band really played a lot and just.
25:12 Billy Corgan? You guys doing like 200 dates a year type tours?
25:15 Speaker 01 Yeah. And in those days, it might've been even more because we did sometimes two things a day, all over the place.
25:25 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
25:26 Speaker 01 And it's just ridiculous shows.
25:28 Billy Corgan? Yeah. Well, back then, you had to build your rap on the road. There was really no, it was radio and the road.
25:34 Speaker 01 And that's how you got good as a, as a unit, as a playing unit.
25:38 Billy Corgan? Yeah. But what a great, what a great band.
25:43 Billy Corgan? How did, because obviously, all, all bands have their testosterone, including the ladies involved.
25:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
25:51 Billy Corgan? But, but how did the band deal with so much of the focus being on you and Nancy? Like, were they cool with it?
25:58 Speaker 01 They were at first because they could see that it was bringing us success. But after a while, they got really tired of it and it became a thing. Like, for instance, when Rolling Stone wants to do a cover story on Heart, they only want to talk to Nancy and Anne.
26:15 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
26:16 Speaker 01 And that.
26:19 Speaker 01 After a while, really got under the guy's skin. And it became the thing that separated the people in the band right down gender lines.
26:29 Billy Corgan? Really?
26:29 Speaker 01 So the very thing that made art interesting and unusual, the microcosm of men and women working together, became the thing that ultimately kind of destroyed that first lineup.
26:43 Billy Corgan? That's a shame.
26:44 Speaker 01 Yeah, and it's weird how that happened.
26:46 Billy Corgan? Did you feel like they almost kind of blamed you and your sister? Even though like, what are you supposed to do about it?
26:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, well, I was a real pariah then for a while because I was the one that was speaking the most for the band in the press. And so that, the guys were not happy about it. The bass player didn't understand why it wasn't him speaking for the band, you know?
27:12 Billy Corgan? We all have had these similar problems in our lives.
27:15 Speaker 01 I bet you understand too well.
27:17 Billy Corgan? I understand. My band used to get mad at me for similar things and I used to say, I don't, I don't know what you want me to do about that, you know what I mean?
27:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, say no.
27:27 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
27:28 Speaker 01 Say no?
27:29 Billy Corgan? No, they would want, they would want me to turn interviews down, turn photo shoots down, turn, insist that interviews could only happen if everybody was present. And then if everyone was present and then the interviewer didn't ask them all the same amount of questions, they were mad at me.
27:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:45 Billy Corgan? Cause I hadn't pre-negotiated.
27:48 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:48 Billy Corgan? Like stuff like that, like you're just kind of like, wow, this is pretty bizarre. Like I got, this is the, I have, this is where I have the least amount of control with the media.
27:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:57 Billy Corgan? You know, and you know what that feels like. It's like, it's not like, it looks, it can look shiny from the outside, but from the inside, it's, it's, it's, it's hard to be vulnerable. It's hard to have people picking you apart.
28:08 Speaker 01 Yeah.
28:08 Billy Corgan? And talking about a lot of stuff you don't even necessarily want to talk about.
28:11 Speaker 01 Right.
28:12 Billy Corgan? In your mind, at least in my mind, I was thinking, well, I'm promoting the band.
28:16 Speaker 01 Yeah.
28:16 Billy Corgan? You know what I mean?
28:17 Speaker 01 And this is all interesting.
28:18 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
28:22 Billy Corgan? Can you talk a little bit, there's a deeper point I'm after, but can you talk about your songwriting philosophy? Because I was impressed because, you know, the general story, and correct me if I'm getting the general story wrong. The general story is, you have this integral band, great rock band, 70s, you're writing your own music. The 80s comes calling, you end up using all these outside writers. You've been very vocal about how you don't necessarily love all that stuff, although you appreciate that the fans love it.
28:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
28:54 Billy Corgan? But I was impressed because I listened to some of your recent albums and it's like, I was like, wow, that songwriter is still there. And I felt like I found something beautiful in checking out your more recent work because I was like, there's the writer that I grew up with and she's still talking.
29:12 Speaker 01 That's amazing. Thank you.
29:13 Billy Corgan? Do you feel that? Is that?
29:14 Speaker 01 I do. I do. Now more than ever.
29:18 Billy Corgan? What was the song I listened to? Greed?
29:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:20 Billy Corgan? On Fierce Bliss?
29:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:23 Billy Corgan? I was like, I know that person. I grew up listening to this person's writing. I know this voice, not just the singer in you, this voice.
29:32 Speaker 01 Yeah. Yeah.
29:33 Billy Corgan? I thought that was so cool that you kind of found your way back to that.
29:37 Speaker 01 Yeah. And it was really something that was really important to both Nancy and I after the 80s was to come crawling out of that. It was one of those devil's bargains you always seem to have to make.
29:54 Billy Corgan? You definitely made it, for sure.
29:55 Speaker 01 Make it in the music world. But to come out of that and come back to ourselves was not easy.
30:04 Billy Corgan? It strikes me, and I did talk about it with your sis a bit, but it struck me as particularly painful because you guys were so good and you really were your own music.
30:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:14 Billy Corgan? That that transition is so strange to me and I'm not judging it because I know that those pressures are not easy to navigate, but. The fact that you have this recent, this last two albums that you put out, like, there's that writer, that same person who wrote Dreambo Nanny, like, she's still writing music. I was like, wow, this is cool.
30:35 Speaker 01 That's great.
30:35 Billy Corgan? I really enjoyed that, so.
30:37 Speaker 01 That's so great. Thank you.
30:39 Billy Corgan? I hope you feel that, because it's important to me even to hear it, you know?
30:43 Speaker 01 Well, songwriting that I've been doing lately with Tripsitter is really rewarding. I mean, it's because anything goes, doesn't have to be within the confines of what's acceptable in the 80s.
30:59 Billy Corgan? Did you have to almost kind of refine your songwriting voice?
31:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, definitely.
31:04 Billy Corgan? Can you talk about, like, how does that work for you? Or how did it work for you?
31:08 Speaker 01 Well, I think, well, the song Greed, for instance, was,
31:19 Speaker 01 I just wanted to come and write something that was happening currently. And so I was thinking about, you know, the corporate greed and all that kind of stuff that was, that's so rampant in our country. And I was just trying to think of a way to talk about that without, without being preachy.
31:41 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
31:42 Speaker 01 And just, so the stuff I'm, I'm writing now is about all kinds of things.
31:48 Billy Corgan? But I guess it's the, I don't know, je ne sais quoi, it's the essence of you as a writer? I don't know what that is, because, you know, Heart 1.0, there's like weird info, there's Folk, there's Zepp, there's Prague, there's, God knows what else, you know what I mean? Janis Ian, I don't know, you know what I mean? There's like an interesting mix of influences there. And it seems like somehow you've kind of come back to those influences in a way, it doesn't, but it doesn't sound dated.
32:18 Speaker 01 Well, that's good. Thank you.
32:20 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
32:20 Speaker 01 Yeah. That's so important, too, because.
32:23 Billy Corgan? Well, yeah.
32:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
32:25 Billy Corgan? I mean, especially if you got to sing it, right?
32:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
32:32 Billy Corgan? When, when, it's like, I feel like we're talking about a decade. When the eighties happened, can you talk a little bit about that? That first time that you felt like, okay, we're in this situation. We have this big business. There's all this pressure on us to continue to be on the radio or we haven't had the radio success and now they're putting all this pressure. Talk about that because that's something I think most people don't understand in the modern world.
32:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
33:00 Billy Corgan? Like eighty, it was about eighty-two or something, I feel like.
33:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was eighty-two, eighty-three.
33:05 Billy Corgan? Like suddenly like they kind of put the pins on you guys.
33:08 Speaker 01 Yeah. We had a record contract with Capitol at that point and it was the thing that picked us up from not being able to be arrested, you know?
33:28 Speaker 01 I think we got dropped from Epic and we met this guy, Don Grierson, who's no longer with us, but he was A and R at Capitol at the time. And he said, well, I really believe in you guys. So come to Capitol and I'll help you find the right songs, you know? And so it was come hither, you know? And it was sort of presented like you can do this or you can just say bye-bye.
34:00 Billy Corgan? They presented it to your management, sort of translated the?
34:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:03 Billy Corgan? Okay.
34:04 Speaker 01 Because at that point, we were, we were using big time corporate LA management.
34:09 Billy Corgan? Okay.
34:10 Speaker 01 And which is scary enough on its own.
34:15 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
34:15 Speaker 01 But, but yeah, it was a complete devil's bargain.
34:19 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
34:20 Speaker 01 And it really, the songs that we were presented with, you just kind of had to swallow real hard and, and go, well, there's something about the song I like, but it hasn't got any substance.
34:35 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
34:35 Speaker 01 That's was the problem I had with most of the songs that we got in the eighties, that we did, even the hits.
34:42 Billy Corgan? Yeah, even I listened to that one today that it's like, I know you flipped the gender, but like you're the hitchhiker picking up.
34:48 Speaker 01 Oh yeah, all I want to do is make love to you.
34:51 Billy Corgan? What a weird.
34:52 Speaker 01 No substance. What's, and God, what a brutal, mean thing to do to another person.
34:58 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
35:01 Billy Corgan? But did you, um, I mean, I talked with your sis about it a bit, but at the end of the day, I mean, I know she sang the one song, but I mean, at the end of the day, you're the singer.
35:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
35:13 Billy Corgan? And, and, you know, I, I guess maybe I'm, excuse me for overly projecting, but as a singer who writes his own songs, it strikes me as it must have been very painful for you to be in this position. Like, why doesn't my own song work in this dynamic anymore? Is that fair to say that?
35:33 Speaker 01 Yeah. And that was a, a clear case of me not understanding the zeitgeist of the eighties at all. Because if I had understood that, I would have known that the songs I was writing, we were writing together, were just, they were somewhere else.
35:53 Billy Corgan? I see.
35:53 Speaker 01 And, and they weren't, they weren't artificial. They, they weren't glossy. All those things that, that the eighties music was.
36:04 Billy Corgan? Yeah. So if you had to do over again, would you, would you have come at it differently?
36:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
36:10 Billy Corgan? How, just indulge me on?
36:12 Speaker 01 I would have understood, I would have spent more time listening to the radio, for instance.
36:17 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
36:18 Speaker 01 And understanding what it was that was turning everyone on so much.
36:22 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
36:23 Speaker 01 And not just the sound of it, not to copy other records, but to get a feeling about the soul of what's there in the soul, you know?
36:33 Billy Corgan? Yeah. Cause I once, uh, uh, Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick, they had that number one hit with the song, The Game, if you remember that song. Robin delivers this incredible vocal.
36:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
36:45 Billy Corgan? As only Robin could, you know?
36:47 Speaker 01 He's a great singer.
36:48 Billy Corgan? And I know you guys did a song together. Um, but I, you know, Rick was the main writer for Cheap Trick. And I remember being in Rick's house one time and saying, did that kill you? And he had, kind of had this attitude like, well, you know, same thing. We were with Epic and the Pressure and.
37:05 Speaker 01 You have to.
37:06 Billy Corgan? We used an outside writer and we had a big hit and suddenly we were playing bigger places. So he had kind of processed it.
37:11 Speaker 01 Yeah.
37:11 Billy Corgan? But I still, to this day, as someone who loves Rick as a person, I still feel like it hurt him in a way that he never totally recovered from.
37:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
37:19 Billy Corgan? He may argue with me on that. I mean, I'm not in his brain. I don't know if anybody's in Rick's brain, but.
37:27 Billy Corgan? Point being is you're a great songwriter, Rick's a great songwriter and somebody who writes for a living, it just strikes me as just so hurtful. I don't, I don't even know if I even have the words to put it.
37:40 Speaker 01 Way hurtful, yeah, because we had some really cool songs, we thought, some, some really deep, like emotionally fulfilling songs that, that could have been great if they would have been listened to and given a chance, but they weren't.
37:55 Billy Corgan? Yeah. Is it just wrong songs for the cheese of the time?
37:59 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
38:01 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
38:03 Speaker 01 But coming out of that was, was pretty inspiring.
38:08 Billy Corgan? Okay.
38:09 Speaker 01 When it got to the nineties and, and of course, in the nineties, nobody wanted to hear our kind of stuff either.
38:17 Billy Corgan? You talking about the seventies version or the eighties version or?
38:20 Speaker 01 I think everyone thought of Heart in the nineties, everyone thought of Heart as being a relic from the seventies.
38:28 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
38:28 Speaker 01 Except for a couple of things like Barracuda and the things that were more.
38:32 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
38:35 Speaker 01 Heavy rock.
38:35 Billy Corgan? Yeah, well, to be fair to you, I think it was such a time of change that it's, it's common to just want to wipe everything out.
38:44 Speaker 01 Yeah. And that's, that's really what happened in the nineties. It was like this giant tsunami.
38:50 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
38:50 Speaker 01 And there went the eighties, it was gone, you know?
38:53 Billy Corgan? But of course you had that moment where you, you sang on the, the Jerry song, the Rooster.
39:00 Speaker 01 Yeah. Brother too.
39:03 Billy Corgan? Oh, that's right. And it, I think for all of us in Gen X, it was a beautiful reminder of like, no, actually Heart's part of our world. Somehow I brought you back into our world. And I know you guys started doing other side projects. I can't remember the names of the, the, you started doing those other records. Like, you know what I'm talking about? You weren't Heart, you were?
39:24 Speaker 01 Love mongers.
39:25 Billy Corgan? Thank you. Isn't there somewhere? But I'm saying is it seemed to kind of, I don't know, did it help kind of wake you guys back up too?
39:34 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:34 Billy Corgan? There's a community out here that actually does really love and celebrates us.
39:37 Speaker 01 Yeah, and we, we actually found a lot of good friends in that community.
39:42 Billy Corgan? Well, yeah.
39:43 Speaker 01 And, and.
39:44 Billy Corgan? Because, because maybe on this, on the surface, it might have seemed like, oh yeah, that's just the band that did Barracuda. But you had a lot of love from the Gen X community.
39:55 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:55 Billy Corgan? Because we'd grown up with you and you were so important to that world. You weren't just a pop act.
40:00 Speaker 01 Right.
40:01 Billy Corgan? Like you meant something to that world.
40:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, and that was so surprising to me.
40:07 Speaker 01 That people like Jerry Cantrell and everything would be so, they would, he would always tell me how much he loved certain ones of our songs.
40:19 Billy Corgan? Their one song is basically an Alice in Chains song of yours. It's like, it's Alice in Chains 20 years before Alice in Chains.
40:25 Speaker 01 Oh, you mean?
40:25 Billy Corgan? I can't think of the, you know, the song, it's, it's, it's a very interesting kind of Gothic ballad you have. It's a very musical chain crazy, I can't remember the title of it.
40:34 Speaker 01 Is it Rage?
40:35 Billy Corgan? Can't remember, it's a very, it's, it literally sounds like Alice in Chains, but you guys had done it in like 80 or something.
40:41 Speaker 01 Uh huh.
40:42 Billy Corgan? It's, it's, it's more of an album cut.
40:44 Speaker 01 Yeah.
40:46 Billy Corgan? But Jerry talked about how he, basically that song's like part of his inspiration for.
40:51 Speaker 01 Oh, that's, that's cool.
40:52 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
40:53 Speaker 01 I saw him the other night.
40:54 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
40:55 Speaker 01 He actually came to the, the first time we did the doc, show the doc.
41:00 Billy Corgan? Oh, okay.
41:01 Speaker 01 Because he speaks in it.
41:02 Billy Corgan? Oh, that's fantastic.
41:05 Billy Corgan? Yeah, I'm very fond of Jerry.
41:06 Speaker 01 He's doing so great.
41:07 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
41:08 Speaker 01 He, he's really doing great.
41:09 Billy Corgan? Well, see the songwriter.
41:11 Speaker 01 Yeah.
41:11 Billy Corgan? Right? Real songwriter.
41:13 Speaker 01 Yep.
41:15 Billy Corgan? So.
41:19 Billy Corgan? I don't want to belabor the issue with everybody focused on your image. I mean, that's been off explored. But what struck me that might be interesting to talk about from a different perspective is there's such a different attitude towards, I mean, the common thing is body positivity. But there's such a less, I'm not saying there's less focus on female artist looks, but there's a different mindset in the musical community that like you cannot judge people on these things like they would have judged people in the past.
41:51 Speaker 01 Right.
41:51 Billy Corgan? Do you at least see that now? Do you?
41:53 Speaker 01 Um.
41:54 Billy Corgan? Cause you were, you were, obviously you were treated very roughly in, in those times.
41:59 Speaker 01 Yeah. Yeah, I had to go through some.
42:02 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
42:03 Speaker 01 For sure. But um, yeah, I think there is a pretty imperceptible, almost, but very real change now. Like you, you see people like Lola Young, you see, um, Lizzo. I mean, you see people who are being accepted, even though they don't fit the mold.
42:26 Billy Corgan? Yeah. I think it's powerful.
42:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
42:30 Billy Corgan? I'm not the wokest person in the world, you know what I mean? As, as it's commonly defined, but I think of all the things that have come out of the social movements of the last 10 to 15 years, I think the body positivity movement is the one that's to me, one of the most powerful.
42:46 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. I agree with that. And it definitely opens up the souls of a lot of people to actually try to write music and sing and speak, you know?
43:00 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
43:01 Speaker 01 Who never would before because they, they were just scared that they would be.
43:05 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
43:05 Speaker 01 Well, rejected.
43:07 Billy Corgan? To me, that's one of the legacies of the Gen X alternative community is that generation, which I was a part of. We brought in a lot of, like, you, you really need to look at these things a lot differently.
43:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
43:19 Billy Corgan? And that was one of them.
43:20 Speaker 01 Yeah. I agree with that.
43:21 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
43:22 Speaker 01 Very, very.
43:23 Billy Corgan? So if there's any legacy there, that's a proud one because. Music really should be the great equalizer. It should really just be how talented are you? And can you emotionally connect to an audience? All the other stuff is really more the product of capitalism.
43:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly right. The entertainment rules, the rules of the entertainment world.
43:46 Billy Corgan? Well, oftentimes dictated by men to women, by the way.
43:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
43:50 Billy Corgan? Not that you've ever been through that.
43:52 Speaker 01 Never.
43:54 Billy Corgan? There's this moment in your historical lore where, you know, somewhere in the 90s, your sister comes to you and says, I need a break.
44:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
44:02 Billy Corgan? You know, and when I asked her, she said, you were not happy.
44:06 Speaker 01 No.
44:06 Billy Corgan? About that.
44:07 Speaker 01 I was not, yeah.
44:08 Billy Corgan? I want, oh, please.
44:10 Speaker 01 Because at that moment, heart was in a very precarious state of,
44:19 Speaker 01 are we going to exist or not? And
44:24 Speaker 01 we, if we were going to exist, we had to pull together and just rally everything we had to make it happen.
44:33 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
44:33 Speaker 01 And she chose that moment to say, no, I want to take a break. I want to start a family. And there was nothing I could do to persuade her.
44:43 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
44:43 Speaker 01 I pleaded, I cried, I did everything. But she was set on it.
44:49 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
44:50 Speaker 01 I mean, she was married to Cameron. They were happy, they wanted to do this thing. And so I eventually just accepted it.
44:58 Billy Corgan? Yeah. I wanted to come at it slightly differently because it struck me that somewhere along the way between 1970, whatever, and this moment where your sister says, okay, I need to take a break. I mean, somebody must have whispered in your at some point said, you know, you can go solo.
45:16 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:16 Billy Corgan? You don't need heart, you don't need your sister, it can be all about you. I mean, somebody must have offered you that along the way.
45:23 Speaker 01 Well, I've had that offer many times along the way. But I've always been a band person, I want to be in a band.
45:30 Billy Corgan? But that's kind of what I was after.
45:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:32 Billy Corgan? Was part of your frustration, like, look, I stayed here to do this thing with you together.
45:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:40 Billy Corgan? That we call heart.
45:41 Speaker 01 Yeah. Yeah, and but sometimes.
45:45 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
45:46 Speaker 01 There might be something that's bigger than the band.
45:48 Billy Corgan? Sure.
45:49 Speaker 01 Can you believe that? You know, I mean.
45:51 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
45:53 Billy Corgan? Do you do you do you think if you'd gone solo somewhere in that arc? You know, do you ever think about that?
45:59 Speaker 01 Yeah, and I did try to do some solo stuff during that time.
46:04 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
46:04 Speaker 01 And it was fun, but. Uh.
46:07 Billy Corgan? But you know what I mean?
46:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, it wasn't working.
46:10 Billy Corgan? But you know what I mean? Like if you'd said, right, okay. I'm gonna be a solo artist now.
46:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
46:15 Billy Corgan? I mean, look at the success of Phil Collins. Look at the success of other people who kind of broke out of their bands.
46:21 Speaker 01 Stevie Nicks. Huge solo.
46:24 Billy Corgan? Well, I I mean. I love Stevie. I'm gonna assume you do too. I mean. No one would say that you're not the equal or greater than a vocalist than Stevie, and she's one of the greats of all time. So I'm saying is. It's not to play Monday morning quarterback and say, well, this could have been.
46:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
46:41 Billy Corgan? But it strikes me that if you would at some point in that arc, focus strictly on a solo career.
46:47 Speaker 01 Mm hmm. Yeah, it it could have happened. I was just never interested in it. You know, I never had that. Oh, it's all about me like the. It's gotta be the Ann Wilson show, you know?
47:02 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
47:02 Speaker 01 Like, I never had that.
47:06 Speaker 01 Nowadays. I. I don't even really have that. But I'm working with a band where it's called Ann Wilson and Tripsitter. So it's it's kind of all about. Me songwriting.
47:20 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
47:22 Speaker 01 Then this great band, you know, so.
47:23 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
47:24 Speaker 01 That's about the closest I've ever come to being a solo artist.
47:26 Billy Corgan? Yeah. Yeah, sorry, I'm just it's.
47:29 Speaker 01 No, that's a.
47:30 Billy Corgan? Cause we.
47:31 Speaker 01 It's good.
47:31 Billy Corgan? So I was in the same mentality. It was band, band, band, band, band.
47:34 Speaker 01 Yeah.
47:35 Billy Corgan? So even when people would say that stuff, it's like, no, no, the band.
47:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
47:38 Billy Corgan? Like, that's my whole thing.
47:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. But then when the ultimate thing happens and somebody doesn't want to do it.
47:49 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
47:50 Speaker 01 Or, or somebody dies or something like that. You've got to figure it out.
47:55 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
47:57 Speaker 01 Like, think, think of what it was like for Alice in Chains when, when Lane went past.
48:03 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
48:05 Speaker 01 That was a huge kick in the stomach for them.
48:09 Billy Corgan? Well, actually, when Alice reformed with William, their singer, ever since, I actually joined them in LA at a show and sang on stage with them.
48:19 Speaker 01 Oh, great.
48:20 Billy Corgan? But they were kind of doing this, okay, now this is going to be the new version of Alice in Chains. And as you can imagine, there were many people that were skeptical.
48:26 Speaker 01 Yeah, of course.
48:28 Billy Corgan? You know, like, why are you continuing and what are you doing?
48:31 Speaker 01 Oh, people always are.
48:32 Billy Corgan? No, I get that, but in, in, you know, as you can imagine, it's particularly difficult if you don't have the singer.
48:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
48:38 Billy Corgan? You know what I mean? Because the singer is, the public just identifies with that voice.
48:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
48:43 Billy Corgan? And then, of course, in the case of Lane, what an incredible.
48:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
48:48 Billy Corgan? Gifted talent.
48:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
48:54 Billy Corgan? I saw, I saw a mention where, where, you know, you, you opulically referred to excess, you know, excess in your life, meaning like, I don't know if it's alcohol or.
49:04 Speaker 01 Oh, sure.
49:05 Billy Corgan? Self-medicating.
49:06 Speaker 01 Yeah.
49:08 Billy Corgan? How'd you kind of find your way out of that?
49:11 Speaker 01 Well, I.
49:14 Speaker 01 It was two things. It was, my doctor said, your liver, I've never seen numbers like this. You're, you've got to change your ways because your, your liver is not happy. And so that scared me, but the thing that really got me to stop was my children. They were, my daughter was born and I realized in a flash that I could not relate to her if I was altered. And even a little bit, like, not even alcohol, nothing, you know? And so that sort of got me off it. And then
49:58 Speaker 01 when my son was born.
50:02 Speaker 01 He mentioned something to me because I had gone back to, oh, I'll just have a little bit, you know, he mentioned something to me and it just
50:12 Speaker 01 humiliated me and made me feel awful. So I decided just to stop everything.
50:18 Billy Corgan? Wow.
50:20 Speaker 01 It was really them.
50:21 Billy Corgan? Wow.
50:24 Billy Corgan? I want to play a small game. I thought you're so uniquely voiced to play this game with me. Because we've seen such massive changes in entertainment over the decades. So
50:39 Billy Corgan? you can take it however you want. I just, it struck me that you're the perfect person to play this game. If it's silly, you can tell me it's silly. So what was your perception of music and the, and the community of the music business, however you want to take that, whether it was on television or what you were listening to on the radio? What was your impression of music as a business or as an artistic way of expressing oneself in the 60s?
51:03 Speaker 01 Oh, oh, I thought it was the most glamorous thing that I'd ever seen.
51:12 Speaker 01 And all those, all those people, those long, shaggy people who were doing it were just gorgeous to me and I wanted to be part of it.
51:23 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
51:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
51:24 Billy Corgan? Okay, so now fast forward to the 70s, now you're in it.
51:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
51:28 Billy Corgan? Now what's your impression?
51:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, well, it was pretty glamorous and glorious. Yeah. In the 70s. And of course, you're in your 20s, so you've, you've got all that physical energy, you're at the height of your physical beauty, your power.
51:46 Billy Corgan? And by the way, there's live clips of you guys from playing from the 70s and you guys are rocking.
51:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
51:52 Billy Corgan? I mean, you're just rocking.
51:53 Speaker 01 Well, we, we played so much that we were just current with
51:58 Billy Corgan? But you know, you can't fake that.
52:00 Speaker 01 Man, yeah.
52:01 Billy Corgan? I mean, you're just killing it.
52:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
52:05 Billy Corgan? Right?
52:05 Speaker 01 Yep.
52:06 Billy Corgan? Okay, eighties?
52:08 Speaker 01 Eighties was was like, uh, somebody put a gag on you. Kind of on your true feelings. And it was all about MTV, so it was more about stylists. And so a lot of the things that that made you you were not cool. Like, you know, you had to be styled by somebody else.
52:34 Billy Corgan? Yes.
52:35 Speaker 01 Uh.
52:36 Billy Corgan? There's a lot of big hair going on.
52:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, a lot of big hair. And you don't know what it took to get the hair like that. I mean, it was amazing. And you had to sing somebody else's song. So so it was almost like being just being a hireling.
52:50 Billy Corgan? Wow. Okay, nineties?
52:53 Speaker 01 Nineties. Uh, we didn't have the big, huge success. Commercial success, but the nineties was one of the most satisfying times ever because there was so much amazing music going on in Seattle. And being a part of that community was was just great.
53:11 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
53:12 Speaker 01 And I did work for a couple of years at, uh, Teatro Zanzani. Uh, which, uh, do you know what that is? It started in Seattle. It's, um, Norm Landel. Uh.
53:28 Speaker 01 It's a
53:30 Speaker 01 kind of a cabaret drag show, but it's all it's scripted. It's a play.
53:37 Billy Corgan? Oh, I okay, I have heard about this.
53:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
53:39 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
53:40 Speaker 01 And the guy who started at Norm Landel went to Spain to the clown bar and got hired a bunch of clowns from different countries. So, uh, it was a cast of thirteen people. I was one of them. And there were only two of us that were American. The rest were like Russian and French and.
54:02 Billy Corgan? And was it you were just part of the show?
54:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. And I played the Strolling Chantouse, where I sang jazz jazz songs and stuff like that.
54:12 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
54:13 Speaker 01 I did that for a couple of years in Seattle and in, um, San Francisco.
54:17 Billy Corgan? Oh.
54:18 Speaker 01 So that's how I spent the nineties. It was pretty pretty fun.
54:22 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
54:23 Speaker 01 It's really fun.
54:24 Billy Corgan? Okay, two thousands.
54:26 Speaker 01 In the two thousands, I started to really, really want to get back to art. The the bigness of it all.
54:35 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
54:36 Speaker 01 And uh. So Nancy and I started out. The two thousands by going on a duet tour, just the two of us.
54:45 Billy Corgan? I've seen clips of that, yeah.
54:46 Speaker 01 Yeah, and that was great. That was right down to the core of everything.
54:53 Billy Corgan? Yeah, well, back to where you started, really.
54:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's right. And so we did that, and then we started putting the band back together. Mike Inez played bass with us for a while.
55:05 Billy Corgan? Oh, I didn't know that.
55:05 Speaker 01 For.
55:06 Billy Corgan? What a great human being, by the way.
55:08 Speaker 01 Oh, God, yeah.
55:09 Billy Corgan? What a lovely just person.
55:11 Speaker 01 Amazing comedic timing, just one of the funniest guys.
55:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, and so we started getting Heart back together with new people.
55:22 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
55:22 Speaker 01 And uh. That sort of opened up to what we have now.
55:27 Billy Corgan? Yeah. So having lived it both from a fan to a performer, and then you see with what's coming with technology and AI, were you following on all that? Because, as you know, it's the number one topic.
55:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
55:44 Billy Corgan? You know, we're all sitting around dinner tables, wondering what's coming.
55:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, and.
55:50 Speaker 01 I'm scared.
55:51 Billy Corgan? Okay, tell me why.
55:53 Speaker 01 Because I feel that, not about the AI itself, but about how much the world is accepting it.
56:02 Billy Corgan? That's. I'm with you on that.
56:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
56:04 Billy Corgan? It shocks me how there's no discussion on like, where's this going?
56:08 Speaker 01 Yeah.
56:08 Billy Corgan? There's kind of a general like, whoa, but like, not the real discussion.
56:13 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, and I I'm just afraid that um. Well, like, any worker whose job might be taken by a machine.
56:25 Billy Corgan? I think you're safe, but.
56:26 Speaker 01 Yeah, but but I mean, you have those examples of songs that have been written by AI.
56:32 Billy Corgan? Sure.
56:33 Speaker 01 And how absolutely despicable the lyrics are.
56:41 Speaker 01 And the, the way they sound. But the, the thing that pisses me the most off about that is it's, um,
56:51 Speaker 01 there's no soul, there's, there's no humanity. It's
56:55 Billy Corgan? Yeah. Yeah, I, I had
56:57 Speaker 01 I'm scared about that.
56:57 Billy Corgan? I had a group dinner about a month ago and I happened to be sitting next to a guy who's an AI engineer for a big tech. And he was basically telling me what's coming, like the stuff that's not out.
57:10 Speaker 01 Yeah.
57:11 Billy Corgan? And he said that the, the, the progress is so frighteningly fast that they're even almost trying to hold it back. Cause at some point, once it reaches a point of singularity,
57:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
57:23 Billy Corgan? the progress will be so fast that like the human mind won't be able to keep up.
57:26 Speaker 01 Right.
57:26 Billy Corgan? With it. The other thing was I got an email, uh, the other day from an intellectual property lawyer that I work with on other stuff. And he said that artists are now starting to explore,
57:38 Billy Corgan? uh, because it's, it's not in law yet, the ability to trademark your voice, the way you speak, the way you sing.
57:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
57:47 Billy Corgan? And your mannerisms, because families are going to have to start protecting the intellectual property of talents. Because no one knows where this goes.
57:56 Speaker 01 Yeah. Yeah, I know everyone in our, um, legal and management world is upset about that whole
58:05 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
58:06 Speaker 01 thing too. But there's no way to control it right now. It's, it's, it's like playing whack a mole.
58:12 Billy Corgan? Yes.
58:13 Speaker 01 You see one and you beat it down and another one pops up.
58:16 Billy Corgan? Have you had people, uh, do the fake songs with you using your voice yet?
58:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
58:22 Billy Corgan? That's a weird one. I, it's happened to me too.
58:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
58:26 Speaker 01 It's so weird.
58:27 Billy Corgan? It's out there, right?
58:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
58:32 Billy Corgan? Since you're a lifer and since you've spent most of your life on the road, is there anything that you've learned? Like, any life lessons? Because it's a lonely gig. I think singers, it's... Everybody has a sort of idealized idea what it means to be the singer in the band. My personal opinion is it's kind of a solitary gig.
58:54 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. And you have to rely so much on your physicality to come through for you.
59:03 Billy Corgan? Can I ask you a question?
59:04 Speaker 01 Sure.
59:04 Billy Corgan? Because it's somebody I admire so much. Do you think part of that is because we have to work with the breath so much?
59:12 Speaker 01 Yes, the breath and the, just the whole mechanism from abs all the way through. But the way I think about the whole breath thing is I think that it's the divine wind that we singers get. And if we can go like this...
59:35 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
59:37 Speaker 01 We're laughing. It's when we try to sing from here and... It doesn't work.
59:44 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
59:45 Speaker 01 It's gotta come from...
59:45 Billy Corgan? So for you, from an almost spiritual perspective, it's gotta come this way?
59:49 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
59:50 Billy Corgan? Yeah. There's this beautiful quote I read once. Allen Ginsberg was talking about Bob Dylan at the height of like Bob Dylan 65. And the phrase that Ginsberg used was he called Dylan a column of air. Because Dylan was singing those crazy, you know, Blonde and Blonde songs where, you know, these impossibly long sentences.
1:00:10 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:00:11 Billy Corgan? You know, songs with 14 stanzas that he memorized them all. And he said Bob was just this column of air.
1:00:18 Speaker 01 Wow.
1:00:19 Billy Corgan? I thought it was such an interesting description of Dylan in that time. This just one guy on stage with a guitar, but this ability to just move air.
1:00:27 Speaker 01 Yeah. Amazing.
1:00:32 Billy Corgan? I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Ray Davies. You know, another famed sibling situation. I don't do gossip, so I'm not asking for gossip. It's more of like, what's it like to play in a band with your sibling? I guess, not the gossip version, like...
1:00:59 Billy Corgan? Like when I asked, when I asked Dave about working with Ray,
1:01:04 Billy Corgan? I mentioned something about an interaction I'd had with his brother. And he, he stopped me and didn't want to hear the story.
1:01:14 Speaker 01 Oh.
1:01:15 Billy Corgan? Cause he sensed it was going to be somewhat negative.
1:01:17 Speaker 01 Oh, right.
1:01:19 Billy Corgan? And then he said, no, go on, go on, tell me. And I told him, it wasn't, it wasn't terrible. It wasn't anything bad. I wouldn't have brought it up if it was terrible. And, and he said something along the lines to me like, that's just the way my brother is. And he, he defended his brother in only a way that a sibling would defend a sibling. Not how a bandmate would defend a bandmate. Cause as you know, most bandmates will throw their, their bandmate under the bus.
1:01:45 Speaker 01 Of course they will.
1:01:47 Billy Corgan? So just, if you could just give us a little bit of a three dimensional look, because you've had this incredibly long artistic relationship that goes, obviously, parallel to your relationship as sisters.
1:01:58 Speaker 01 Yeah. Well.
1:02:01 Billy Corgan? Sorry for the long winded question.
1:02:03 Speaker 01 Oh, no.
1:02:03 Billy Corgan? I just, I didn't want it to come across as, what's it like to be in a band with your sister?
1:02:07 Speaker 01 Oh, right. Yeah. No, I get that.
1:02:09 Billy Corgan? Yeah, that's what I'm, and to me, that doesn't have the heart in it. And no pun intended, you know? It strikes me as such a deep thing to share an artistic life with a sibling.
1:02:21 Speaker 01 Yeah, and we, most of the time, finish each other's sentences. Especially where music is concerned.
1:02:30 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
1:02:33 Speaker 01 No one sings harmony like her. And there are things about what she does, what she can bring, that nobody else can bring. I mean, maybe they could, but it would take three, three guys to replace her.
1:02:49 Billy Corgan? Well, I've only, I've only met your sister a couple of times. I've been with her since a couple of times, but she strikes me, she's kind of like some people, they have that kind of magical fairy creature thing.
1:02:57 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
1:02:58 Billy Corgan? Is that a fair?
1:02:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:03:00 Billy Corgan? She's kind of got that magical fairy creature thing.
1:03:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:03:02 Billy Corgan? I don't know what that is, but.
1:03:04 Speaker 01 It's, it's like, oh, like, love everybody, love wins, you know? I mean, she's really got that and she always has, she's always been very Pisces, you know?
1:03:15 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
1:03:17 Billy Corgan? I know you're Gemini, so.
1:03:18 Speaker 01 Yeah. She's.
1:03:22 Speaker 01 I really miss her when we can't be together.
1:03:26 Speaker 01 And so we've, we've had a tough time because we both got married to these very different people and the, the men are kind of like dogs sort of circling each other, you know? They don't hate each other, but they it's, it's very different because now it's not just the two of us.
1:03:48 Billy Corgan? I see.
1:03:49 Speaker 01 And um, when it's just the two of us and I can get her to calm down enough,
1:03:56 Speaker 01 we have a great time. I saw, I saw her uh last night at the rehearsal for the Grammy thing we're gonna do. And she's just, she's just out there running everything and, and telling everybody what's what and telling the Grammy people how long this is gonna be and she's got that in her, that uh administrative type
1:04:18 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
1:04:19 Speaker 01 desire. I don't have that.
1:04:22 Billy Corgan? Yeah. I don't know if this is fair, but I, I got the feeling talking to her.
1:04:30 Billy Corgan? She truly admires you.
1:04:33 Billy Corgan? Do you feel that?
1:04:34 Speaker 01 I do. I do. And it's a strange line to walk because I know she admires me and I admire her. But I think she, and she's always copying me. She always has.
1:04:51 Speaker 01 But I think sometimes uh
1:04:54 Speaker 01 it frustrates her that, you know, I can do the things I do. And she can't be the lead singer.
1:05:05 Speaker 01 Cause it's just, it's not there.
1:05:07 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
1:05:08 Speaker 01 She plays an acoustic, original acoustic guitar.
1:05:11 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
1:05:13 Speaker 01 And nobody else plays like her.
1:05:15 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
1:05:16 Speaker 01 I wouldn't want anybody else. If I had my perfect band, she would definitely be in it. As the
1:05:24 Billy Corgan? Yeah. See, I, the reason I, I resonate so deeply with that is I have a brother, he's not a musician. He's, he's an artist, but.
1:05:32 Billy Corgan? People always ask me like, how's your brother with you? Because you've had so much success and made money and all that stuff. And I'm like, I have the greatest brother in the world. Totally supportive. So I guess in a way, when I interviewed your sister, I was sensitive to that. I wanted to see, is there a hint of jealousy or a shadow over that?
1:05:52 Speaker 01 Sometimes I think there's a little jealousy, yeah.
1:05:55 Billy Corgan? I didn't see it, but I mean, you would, you would know. You know what I mean?
1:05:58 Speaker 01 Well, it's something you feel.
1:06:00 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
1:06:00 Speaker 01 Like, of course, in our family, you would never say that kind of thing out loud.
1:06:07 Speaker 01 But, uh, yeah, I think sometimes it's frustrating to her.
1:06:13 Billy Corgan? Well, the way I resonate with that is when people are freakishly talented like you, the jealousy is not, in a way, personal.
1:06:22 Speaker 01 And there's nothing I can do about it.
1:06:23 Billy Corgan? That's kind of what I mean. I play in a band with somebody who's freakishly talented. And it's like, how did you get that?
1:06:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:06:30 Billy Corgan? It's, it's, it, if it makes any sense, and I'm not trying to interject myself in your family politic. It's more the idea of like, it's almost like, the jealousy is like, well, why did you get that? That look, you make it look so easy.
1:06:43 Speaker 01 Right, yeah.
1:06:44 Billy Corgan? You know what I mean?
1:06:49 Billy Corgan? What's your, what's your view of, I call it pop hegemony. We've had 20 years of just pop overload.
1:06:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:06:58 Billy Corgan? And we all know what that means, like, we don't even have to define it.
1:07:01 Speaker 01 Oh, pop, yeah.
1:07:02 Billy Corgan? Yeah. What's your, what's your feeling? I, I'm, I'm kind of, this is my own personal rant, but I feel like it's collapsing now. I think we've, we're finally at the end of it. I think the public's reached a point of exhaustion.
1:07:12 Speaker 01 I hope you're right.
1:07:13 Billy Corgan? I, I, I, I would, I would bet good money that I am right.
1:07:18 Billy Corgan? Historically, as you know, music, for some reason, you know, would flip over every seven years.
1:07:23 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:07:24 Billy Corgan? Something happened with social media where pop didn't flip over.
1:07:27 Speaker 01 Right.
1:07:28 Billy Corgan? We almost had this like 15, 20 years. It was like the same, but different.
1:07:33 Speaker 01 Yeah. And now, um, it's becoming more international too.
1:07:38 Billy Corgan? Sure.
1:07:38 Speaker 01 So it got a transfusion.
1:07:42 Billy Corgan? Sure, but what's your perspective? Because you've, you've been a student of the game, you know?
1:07:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:07:47 Billy Corgan? Like, what's your view on that?
1:07:49 Speaker 01 Well, personally, I've, I've always been really suspicious of any.
1:07:55 Speaker 01 Uh, music or art that doesn't seem
1:08:00 Speaker 01 authentic, that just seems formulaic or
1:08:03 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
1:08:04 Speaker 01 Um, no substance. And that's how I view pop.
1:08:09 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
1:08:10 Speaker 01 It's, it's there for, uh, to entertain.
1:08:13 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
1:08:14 Speaker 01 Strictly to entertain, you know?
1:08:15 Billy Corgan? Not to be as lame as this, but I mean, is there like recently, somebody said to me, uh, we were talking about a particular pop singer who seems to be struggling publicly. What would you say to a pop singer that, that would hear what you're saying and they would say, I know, I know that's the situation I'm in, but that's the world that I'm in. You know what I mean? Like,
1:08:35 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:08:36 Billy Corgan? I mean, and to be fair, you have expressed your own feeling of being trapped in the eighties by some of those pressures.
1:08:44 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:08:44 Billy Corgan? So what would you say to them as somebody who's actually lived through it? You know what I mean?
1:08:48 Speaker 01 Well, I think I would have sympathy. I mean empathy for them because
1:08:53 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
1:08:54 Speaker 01 I do understand the pressures.
1:08:56 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
1:08:57 Speaker 01 And what they can do to you.
1:09:00 Speaker 01 I would just say, you've got to hang on to your identity.
1:09:05 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
1:09:06 Speaker 01 That's all you can say.
1:09:07 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
1:09:10 Speaker 01 Like someone like, like Chapel Rohn, I think that kid is really smart. And, uh, she's so young and she's got, she's so successful already.
1:09:23 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
1:09:24 Speaker 01 Just if she keeps a hold of herself, just imagine where she could be when she's 40.
1:09:29 Billy Corgan? Yeah. I think that's, we would have similar advice in this regard, which is
1:09:35 Billy Corgan? pop affords you, it's, you know, you, you kind of call it like a deal with the devil. Pop is a deal with the devil. But the true artists, they can do pop, but they don't, they don't, they're not bound by pop.
1:09:48 Speaker 01 They don't live there. Yeah.
1:09:49 Billy Corgan? Yeah.
1:09:50 Speaker 01 Right? Yeah.
1:09:51 Billy Corgan? You know what I mean? Like even the true innovators in pop, whether it was Michael Jackson or Madonna or whatever, they were able, Prince, they were able to evolve the game.
1:10:00 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:10:00 Billy Corgan? Around them.
1:10:01 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:10:02 Billy Corgan? Somehow in the last 20 years, the, the producers became dominant, the writers became dominant. Now you see it now with 20 people on a writing credit.
1:10:09 Speaker 01 I know. That is so amazing to me.
1:10:13 Billy Corgan? Can you believe that?
1:10:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:10:15 Billy Corgan? So, um, okay, last thing.
1:10:20 Billy Corgan? What's the one thing that you still want to accomplish musically that you've set aside and who just haven't done it?
1:10:30 Speaker 01 Wow.
1:10:33 Speaker 01 Well,
1:10:36 Speaker 01 I'd like to do an old fashioned concept album.
1:10:40 Billy Corgan? Really?
1:10:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:10:41 Billy Corgan? Like a prog type record? I saw you covering a Yes song and I was like, see?
1:10:45 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, yeah.
1:10:46 Billy Corgan? There is the prog thing in there.
1:10:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, well, like a concept in the sense of like some of the old concept albums in the 70s, like Wish You Were Here.
1:10:58 Billy Corgan? Okay.
1:10:58 Speaker 01 And that has, there's a through line running through.
1:11:02 Billy Corgan? So why haven't you?
1:11:04 Speaker 01 I don't know.
1:11:05 Billy Corgan? So I've done three concept records.
1:11:07 Speaker 01 You have?
1:11:08 Billy Corgan? Yeah, the last one I did was a triple, 33 songs.
1:11:12 Speaker 01 Wow, triple album?
1:11:14 Billy Corgan? I did it during COVID, to be fair. I mean, it sounds crazy, but I was sitting at home in COVID. I was like, I need something to do. So I did a triple, triple record.
1:11:21 Speaker 01 Wow.
1:11:22 Billy Corgan? Yeah, so I've done three, 95, 2020 something, 2020 something. Yeah.
1:11:30 Speaker 01 Wow, that's a lot of work.
1:11:31 Billy Corgan? Yeah. But it's very rewarding. And I think the thing I would recommend writer to writer is you end up writing songs than you, different than you would normally write because you're more in service to the story than your own emotions.
1:11:46 Speaker 01 Right.
1:11:47 Billy Corgan? Because, you know, most songwriting is just indulgent. This is what I feel.
1:11:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:11:50 Billy Corgan? Here's the song. There's something about writing to a narrative that is a different discipline.
1:11:55 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:11:56 Billy Corgan? And sometimes you get surprised, things come out of you that you didn't know were in there because, because of the, you're trying to serve this narrative.
1:12:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:12:05 Billy Corgan? So I hope you do that.
1:12:06 Speaker 01 Yeah, well, it just sounds like the most incredible, interesting
1:12:11 Billy Corgan? It's fun.
1:12:12 Speaker 01 to take on.
1:12:13 Billy Corgan? It's fun. It's fun. And I think in a world of so much noise and so much music, sometimes having a narrative allows people a different entree point into the music.
1:12:24 Speaker 01 True.
1:12:25 Billy Corgan? Yeah. Thank you so much.
1:12:27 Speaker 01 Thank you for having me.
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